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I don't know if you are like me, but after I get all of the trappings of Christmas taken down and put away, I still have a pile of Christmas cards to deal with. Many of them are so beautiful, I hate to throw them away, and in the spirit of living a little greener, I like to try to recycle them. So, today, we will share some of our favorite ways! If you have any ideas to add, please let us know, we are always looking for new ideas!
Friday Faves #87-Favorite Ways to Recycle Christmas Cards!
1. For years, one of my favorite things to do with the Christmas Cards we receive is to make gift tags for next year. It is fun to cut out the cute motifs and the handmade cards are especially cute to use on packages. Just remember to put them in a place where you will find them next Christmas!
2. Of course, if we receive photo cards of family and loved ones, I like to put them in a photo album. It is fun to see how the families have grown year after year.
3. This year, on Everyday Reading, I found this really cute banner idea. Janssen used the photo cards she received to make a Valentine Banner. It was so cute. Unfortunately, I couldn't bring myself to cut the photo cards, but there were a lot of really cute cards that I used instead. I used a thicker version of baker's twine to make the banner.
I used two different sizes of heart cookie cutters to cut out the shapes.
4. A really awesome gift for young kids next Christmas, or a way to add to the Spirit of Christmas around the house, would be a book using the pictures from the cards. One year I made a Christmas ABC Book using Christmas Cards. It can be tricky coming up with a picture for every letter, but my friend had a poem that she shared with me to help me out. Unfortunately for this post, I gave that book away. But I got to thinking that it would be really cool to use the song "C is for the Christ Child" by Jim Reeves as the text for the book. If you have enough Christmas cards, you can make more than one! I put together a free printable of ideas for making this book.
Here is the PDF file to make printing easier:
It would be awesome to include the CD of the song with the book as well!
So, hopefully you can find a way to recycle those Christmas cards and get the last vestiges of Christmas put away. And, won't it be great knowing that you have a gift for the little ones, gift tags to use when wrapping and something to decorate with for Valentine's Day! Now that is thinking ahead!
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This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase after clicking them, we will be compensated, but there is no additional cost to you. All opinions expressed are our own. Thank you for your support.
My girls and I threw an early Galentine's Day party at Lindsey's house. Alicia couldn't be there of course, since she lives in California, but Lindsey and Maddy came, along with my two DILs, my granddaughters (except Sofia, Alicia's baby) and my "adopted" daughter Charly. Maddy and I decided to team up today to talk about our favorite ideas for decorating and enjoying your own Galentine's Day, because, after all, who enjoys a sweet, pink party more than a bunch of girls?
Food Table
You will notice on our party table of treats, we used the table runner I showed how to make last year on this post! It was great to pull it out again to set all of our treats on. Everyone brought something to share. We had cupcakes, brownies, punch, crackers and dip, and pickles (my granddaughter Jayda's favorite)!
What We Did We set up a puzzle to work on. Dollar Tree has a lot of puzzles to choose from and I had been in the mood to work one for awhile. Of course, I haven't had a chance to finish it, so it is still set up at Lindsey's house. (Sorry Lindsey!)
Madalynn's favorite activity that night was the romantic comedy that we watched, Austenland! It is a pretty fun movie for all ages of girls to enjoy! You can order the DVD or stream it on Amazon Prime.
 
We also played a really fun game! Alicia had given it to me at Christmas and it is a great game to play with a group of people. It is called "Things". One thing that I love about it is that you don't have to move to a table to play, you can just sit around on the couch. It comes with everything you need to play and you really learn a lot of funny things about each other. It is really meant to be played with ages 8 and older, but my 6 and 8 year old granddaughters played and they made the game even more hilarious!
 
Decorations
We decorated with some really cute things from Dollar Tree and from Target. Look at these cute things:
Favors
I particularly loved these wire photo/placecard holders that we found at Dollar Tree! I can't find them for you online, but check out your store to see if they are there. We put empowering quotes in them. Next time, we will plan farther ahead and put photos of each person in them.
The pink bags in the back are also from Dollar Tree. They come is many colors, 10 in a package. We filled them with cute little gifts for each person. We included packs of Kleenex tissues. These Dory ones are cute, but we found Kleenex packs that had empowering sayings on them, to carry out our theme. We also included bath salts, lip balm (From the Target One Spot), bubbles and chocolate! (Be sure to wrap up your chocolates and bath salts really well, and separately, or you will feel like you are eating bath salts when you eat the chocolate. oops!) 
We set them in the entry way on the table where everyone could get one on their way out!
Finally, here are some of the sayings that we used in the card holders. I made them to fit on 3 x 5 cards. Be sure to check your settings to choose the right sized paper and auto-size choice when you print them. Just click on the saying for the pdf. The Audrey Hepburn saying is one of my favorites!
The last one is Maddy's favorite. I love it as well, I am going to try to incorporate it into my life.
We all had a lot of fun together, and we hope you can use some of our ideas at your party, whether it is for Galentine's Day or for Valentine's Day, you can make it something special!
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Pom poms are so fluffy and cute and super popular right now! If you are like me, you look at cute fluffy things and wonder what you can do with them to incorporate more cute fluffiness into you life. Since I have two young granddaughters at my house right now, it has been the perfect time to do some pom pom crafting with them, especially since we are getting so close to Valentine's Day. To begin with, I taught them the fork method of making our own pom poms! They were so excited and it is an easy craft for them to do. They did need help tying them tightly enough, but other than that, they were really good at it. If you haven't seen the fork method yourself, here is a quick video to teach you how! 
Click on this picture to find these heart shaped wreath forms at Dollar Tree!
I found a heart shaped wreath form by accident at Dollar Tree. (They also have round ones.) I thought it would be perfect for a wreath for Valentine's Day, so I picked it up. You can order them on line, so if you have a group crafting event coming, these would be great! At first I thought about a floral wreath, but then I saw yarn and thought pom poms and the pom pom wreath idea was born.
The girls and I started making pink, white and red pom poms. The wreath really takes a lot of pom poms, but they go quickly and they are a lot of fun to do. You can watch TV as you work. I used a large serving fork to make large pom poms, the girls used regular dinner forks for smaller pom poms to act as filler.
The wreath form is different on each side. One side is concave and one is convex. I used the convex side as the front. Then, I started using the tails part of the pom pom to start tying them to the form.
On the back, it helps to keep the pom poms tight to each other and in the place you want them to be if you tie them to each other.
Once the wreath is complete, go back and trim off the strings even with the rest of the pom poms, they will blend in and it will look much neater in the back.
As I mentioned before, it took a lot of pom poms, but I think it came out super cute!
I took it and hung it on Lindsey's door to brighten her day.
My granddaughters and I had so much fun that we couldn't stop there! We picked up some inexpensive t-shirts for them and decided we could do something cute with pom poms on them.
Here is Jayda's. We decided an initial would be darling. The pom poms are sewn on with embroidery thread. These shirts will obviously have to be delicately hand washed and hung to dry.
If you use purchased pom poms, they may stand a chance in the washer and dryer. But, these handmade ones are much more fragile. Be sure to sew them on tightly.
I've also seen ideas with sweaters using pom poms as polka dots, or in heart shapes. Here is a pom pom choker for just $4 right now at Lulus! The ideas are endless! If you don't have time to make anything with them, just keep one in your pocket as a warm fuzzy whenever you feel it in there! These cute fuzzy things can't help but cheer you! :) 
This post contains affiliate links. We will be compensated for purchases made through those links at no additional cost to you. Thank you for your support.  As a grandmother of 9, going on 10 grandchildren (hurray!), I like to do little things for my grandchildren that help add a little magic to their lives and to just show my love in little ways. Last year, I was a little more elaborate and I made the girls owl purses and the boys some patchwork snakes. This year, because my house is so full of people for a couple of months, I am planning on something a little less elaborate, but still sweet and fun that I know my grandchildren will enjoy. This plan of mine called for a trip to Dollar Tree to get some ideas. It was a lot of fun. Look what I found! (Most are linked for your convenience!) There are so many cute little sayings that could go with these little favors. I chose 3.  Here are the pdfs for them so that you can print them off. Just click a button. Then be sure to choose 3.5 x 5 paper. I just printed them on 3.5 x 5 cards. Do not click fit to page. There are a lot of cute ways to package these cute Valentines. You could use these cute pink bags from Dollar Tree and tie them with ribbon.  I filled the bag with the blow-out toy, a balloon, some bubble gum and of course a few candy treats. (Get the blow reference?)  Or, you could just use a zip lock baggie to hold everything. I used heart stickers to attach the card to the inside of the bag. I just remembered that I need to sign the card! If you would like, you could always just use one of the toys to get the message across. I just like the variety.  The owl is just so cute. They come in multiples of 9 in the pack I purchased. You could put in more than one as they also come in multiple colors.  My 4 year old grandson saw these frogs in my bag when I came home from the store, and he got so excited! I guess he had better get one in his gift. Because 3 of my grandchildren are in school and will come home with lots of Valentines, I think it is nice to do these little Valentines for the little ones still at home so that they don't feel left out! It is a fun way to teach them to do kind things for others. I think the Blow Me Away Valentine would be great for a classroom party. (Perhaps leave out the gum!)  We will be back this week with more fun Valentine ideas! Be sure to check back! In the meantime, check out some of our past Valentine's Day posts!
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Creators of Hot Cocoa Bombs! (copyrighted)
Author
Helen Reynolds: Mother of six children , grandmother to eleven! I love to cook, craft and create things and I especially love doing that with my family, So, when my lawyer daughter, Lindsey, my artist daughter, Madalynn, and I came up with the idea of Hot Cocoa Bombs, this blog was born. Then, one more daughter, with her technical and science skills, plus creativity has joined in to round us out! Read more about us here! 
Click this link and visit 3WinksDesignShop on Etsy. Find our Hot Cocoa Bomb Idea Book, our For the Love of PIe e-book and more of our creations!
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